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It’s been a quiet Saturday for Pirates fans, so here’s a topic for discussion: In your life as a Pirates fan, which move of theirs were you most wrong about?
I, unfortunately, have a dozen years of opinions on the public record, and all kinds of misses of various types (event though most of the Pirates’ moves in those first seven or eight years were low-impact exchanges of marginal talent that ultimately didn’t matter). Here a few of my bigger whiffs:
- I liked the Jason Bay trade and said Andy LaRoche was significantly better than Neil Walker. Sorry, everybody. In my defense, that’s pretty clearly what the Pirates thought too, until Walker proved them massively wrong a couple years later.
- The J.A. Happ and Ivan Nova trades. Like everyone else not named Huntington, Searage or Benedict, I didn’t see those as impactful moves at all.
- Jason Grilli for Ernesto Frieri. I loved that deal. Whoops.
- I thought the loss of Chris Shelton in the Rule 5 Draft was of earth-shaking importance. (Again, to defend myself a little bit, maybe Shelton would have turned out to be a long-term asset had his Rule 5 Draft year not messed with his development.)
- I thought Lastings Milledge was the most important player in the Joel Hanrahan / Sean Burnett / Nyjer Morgan trade.
- Jose Bautista. Everybody missed on Jose Bautista.
Anyway, share your biggest whiffs in the comments.